A Lazy Ninja's Journal
by giraffe.out.loud
Summary: A peek into Shikamaru's daily musings and of those closest to him.
1. xxx1221

The Fifth's pissed at me again. Fell asleep during test administration and some bastard genin ratted me out. The idiot. You'd think he was smart enough _not_ to call me out. Genin these days.

Lady Tsudane personally called me into her office later that evening and asked how I could slack off during the gennin exams. I told her that the other forty-six chuunin eyes in the room had it covered and that I had already known precisely which ninjas were prodigies and which ones were wads of sushi.

She didn't like that answer. Not one bit.


	2. xxx1223

Forest of Death right now. Some kid almost got eaten by a bear so I had to jump in and save him. Seriously, you'd think a kid who's training to become a ninja would have the means to run away, plant a simple booby trap or something. But no—I'm surrounded by incompetence.

It's just like my genin years all over again, watching the kids play Capture the Scroll and screwing everything up. I remember those days at recess. It aggravated me how oblivious my classmates were to the basic premise of stratagem. Strengths, weaknesses, patterns, formations, movement durations, potential ambush points—they missed all of these. Whenever I did throw in some advice, the kids just called me a stuck up know-it-all. I'd argue back "I don't know it all…I just know more than you do." Lost a few friends that way.

The kids weren't the only ones giving me a hard time. The teachers called me a lazy underachiever. Said I didn't apply my full potential. I never fully agreed with those remarks. I just didn't fit the academic mold they had etched for me and for all of my peers. To be honest, I was perfectly happy on my own terms, working at my own steady pace. I wasn't being lazy at all. I could reach my full potential everyday by—

Geez. This is tiring. I'll write more later.


	3. xxx1228

The Hokage requested another surprise meeting again. These politics are so troublesome. Rogue ninjas on the loose, illegal shipments from the Water Nation, rising tensions between two nations over land that originally belonged to a third party—I'm amazed that Asuma-san managed. The guy was almost as lazy as I was.

His secret? Figured it out over a round of shogi...or rather, trademark rant.

It started out as a typical speech. He was musing how despite being a woman, the queen was one of the strongest pieces in the game. I told him it was because women are scary beasts by nature and they're within their innate capacity to destroy entire mountains. Or people. He shook his head. "No, Shikamaru. It's because every kingdom and every child needs a queen, a woman strong enough to carry the burden of man on her shoulders." At first I thought this was another allegory for the spirit of Konoha. Fostering future generations, motherhood, pushing legacy, etc. And then I realized what he meant. What he _really _meant. He lit a cigar and laughed about it, too.

**Kurenai**—she was picking up all of his slack.

That lazy bastard.


	4. xxx1301

Temari asked for help with Earth country delegation next month. I obliged to help on behalf of Lady Tsunade. In reality, I just didn't want the girl to berate me again. Call me a lazy slob and whatnot.

Temari. She's become somewhat of an ambassador between the Sand Village and Konoha. We've run a bunch of peace missions, her and I. Okay, well, mostly her. But, it's expected. The girl's a goddamn machine. Smart, driven, ruthlessly business-minded—she can run a seventy-five hour work week and still have the energy to cut down an entire forest. It's unmanly of me to admit this but sometimes I have to force _her _to eat. The girl's so absorbed in her work that she often forgets to.

When we do eat together, she usually opts for seaweed soup. Seawood soup with walnuts on the side. It's predictable now, expected. A calculating girl like her never changes her routine. I told her to try something new once and she told me to bugger off. She yelled that she can appreciate her damn soup if she wants. I guess living in a desert makes you yearn for the ocean.

Chouji bugs me about asking her out. The thought of it is repulsing. I mean, she's not bad looking at all, but the girl's two shuriken short of psycho. She almost killed me the first time we met...not that she could have anyway but damn did she try. I'll say it again. Women are troublesome. _She's_ so troublesome.

Though, admittedly, she's not bad looking at all.


	5. xxx1305

Canceled an intel-shift to check up on Kurenai-san. She's seven months in now so I take it upon myself to visit more often these days. It's the least I can do.

Kurenai? She's doing…okay. Has her ups-and-downs. On some days, she's as chipper as Choji. Talkative. Easygoing. Happy. On others, she's...not so good. Can't blame her for that, though.

Today was a Not-So-Good Day. I noticed it immediately. Her eyes were swollen. Hair tangled. Curtains drawn in. Half-eaten meal. Picture of Asuma on her bed—she had been crying the night before. Or the entire morning. Maybe even both.

The details didn't matter, I guess.


	6. xxx1309

Worked intel today. Nothing happened. Again. The world is quieter without an orange jumpsuit to fuck everything up. I wonder how he's doing.

...I can't believe I just wrote that.


	7. 312

We had a scare today at the decryption center. One of the agents claimed to have unraveled a terrorist plot while on patrol. "We're coming for the Hokage," the message read. We notified ANBU immediately and put the central offices on lockdown. Silly us. Turns out that the message was intercepted from a bunch of genin who were playing mock-war outside the capital grounds.

What a drag.

Everyone had a good laugh about it, but I was slightly ticked off. The entire fiasco...making light of childish innocence. Naivete. Sure, today they're sending fake death threats but come tomorrow they'll actually be slitting throats. We prep them for combat but are they _really_ ready for the weight of our wars? You can train a kid to throw a dagger at the speed of lightning but what about the other _skills_? Can you train them to dig graves without a shovel? Write KIA reports in twenty seconds? Bring news of death to family without making someone cry? No. The ninja world only plays one game and in it the losers don't come back home. Some cases, neither do the winners.

I know this well. **_She _**knows this well.


	8. 315

I'm omitting the year from these journal entries. It's so troublesome writing them down. Time is a relative construct, one which ironically loses significance over its own progression. I apologize to any future historian that picks this book up expecting a chronological marker.


	9. 316

I hung out with Chouji today. He'd just eaten two racks of lamb and requested that I take him for a walk somewhere in order to burn it off. I'd told him, as I always do, that the best way to burn off calories is to not consume them like a goddamn jaguar. He retorted, "but Shikamaru, I wouldn't be here getting your precious advice if I didn't have calories that needed burning in the first place." He laughed. So did I.

I bought him a snow cone for that one.


	10. 321

Visited Kurenai again. Initially, she wasn't too happy to see me. She could tell by the hour that I'd flaked out on another office day to see her. She gave me the typical "_you don't have to be so overprotective, Shikamaru I can take care of myself_" rant. The speech went on for about two minutes until she stopped to tell me that the baby was kicking. Without thinking, I joked that the kid already has Asuma's aggression in him. We stared at each other in silence until Kurenai burst out laughing. "Maybe so," she said. "Maybe so."

I guess you could say it was **Choji Day**.


	11. 322

At the Kato Bridge now. I was supposed to meet up with Temari at the border but her carriers tells me that there are some mix-ups at a Sand checkpoint. Troublesome. You'd think being the Kazekage's big sister would warrant instant clearance. Damn you, woman, for making me wait.

I hate waiting. Being alone makes me want...another smoke. I promised Ino I'd stop but times like these stress the hell out of me. I think about Asuma and Akatsuki and the whole thing pisses me off, about how quickly good things can just turn to shit, how in one split second your mentor ends up a corpse and his fiance a widow. It makes me want to say to hell with this shit, drop this ninja drama, and smoke myself to sleep. I mean, I've been trying to quit. Choji made me try gum for a month but I felt like a camel. Gave that up. I tried shogi, but no one close to me was as good as Asuma so that fell through. Hell, Ino even tried subliminal brainwashing me but that only ended up giving me a migraine. I'm fresh out of ideas.


	12. 322 cont

Actually, I still have the clouds. I think I'll watch them 'til Temari gets here.

Yeah. That sounds like a plan.


End file.
